Last night I saw the two fuzzy young GREAT HORNED OWLS together at their nest site on the Newman Municipal Golf Course in Ithaca. One was in the nest and one a few feet above, with no adult in sight. But upon arriving early on Monday morning, I saw the presumed mother owl and one owlet together in a tree about 35 meters across open space from the nest, where the smaller-looking owlet remained.
Then, drawn by furious cawing, I wandered over to the Jetty Woods. Three crows had found a second adult Great Horned Owl in the dark, dense canopy. Despite the relentless harassment, he seemed mostly quite unstressed, coolly eyeing the crows and feinting with his bill only a couple of times when they drew close. A few minutes later, a couple of these crows and I simultaneously found a subadult BALD EAGLE at the south edge of the woods. This time the crows were much less aggressive, flying close a few times but not cawing, and then leaving after about a minute. A BROWN THRASHER seems to be establishing a territory just south of the osprey platform at the northwest corner of the golf course. Last night this thrasher was moving around a lot, but this morning he tolerated my very slow, close approach as he sang and sang in a tree above the inlet. A GRAY CATBIRD seems also to be setting up here too, making for quite a motley mimid mashup of song fragments. Surprisingly, I haven’t found any Northern Mockingbirds on the golf course for the past few weeks, even though they usually breed right here too. I also didn’t find any unusual warblers today, but I did get uncommonly good views of BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHERS below eye level by the graffiti-decorated building at the base of the woods. Before I turned to go, I looked to the owl family again. This time I saw all three owls together in the aforementioned tree away from the nest, widely spaced among the branches. Two crows came and scolded the owls, prompting the mother to perch right up next to one owlet. Then after a few more seconds, the crows left quietly. From this and from regular crow-free viewing of the nest over the past several weeks, I surmise that crows consider lone owls as a mortal threat, but recognize that an adult tending young at a nest site is not cause for alarm. Here is a photo album <https://photos.app.goo.gl/S9Ie6wyoVdaS1SiC2> of these owls since March 22. The images are mostly rather poor, taken at a considerable distance with a point-and-shoot camera often in dim light, and heavily cropped. Still, the photos are fun and broadly illustrative of the development of the owls, over just a few miraculous weeks, from tiny helpless chicks to hulking young adults **who can fly ** (hooray). Mark Chao -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
